Rusty's Blog

Here are the final results. Many apologies for the misfire a couple of days ago. As I plan to do when anything else goes wrong this year, I blame He Whose Name Shall Not Be Spoken.

Also, thanks for playing. It’s been a lot of fun.

Tiebreaker

The final tiebreaker, which ended up not being necessary, was “How many points will all 10 SEC bowl-bound teams score in their games combined?” The answer if you’re curious was 262.

Your final picks are due Tuesday, Dec. 22. It would be so sad if griftdrift blew his six-point lead the last week. Maybe even sad enough to make Timmy Tebow cry…

(was that not the greatest moment in the history of television?)

(why are all the videos of this some dude with a camcorder recording his TV + a bunch of “annotations” that are actually ads for celebrity gossip blogs?)

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many points will all 10 SEC bowl-bound teams score in their games combined?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker was “How many passing yards will Nebraska’s defense give up against Texas?” Sara’s answer of 298 was closer to the actual total of 184 than Carl’s answer of 315 was, making her the week 14 winner.

Nobody wins! See the tiebreaker section for an explanation.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many passing yards will Nebraska’s defense give up against Texas?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many yards passing will Cincinnati’s starting quarterback accumulate against Illinois?” Tony Pike threw for 399. Neither Ben nor writerchad bothered to guess a tiebreaker, so nobody won last week.

Bonus question: How many goddamn times will the announcers mention Tim Tebow’s name during the SEC championship game broadcast unrelated to a play that just happened on the field?

An entire bar tab to whoever actually counts. A bar tab and a meal to go with it if you make a video montage containing every unrelated-to-play-on-the-field utterance of “Tebow” from the broadcast. This is open to anybody, not just those playing picks.

Griftdrift appears to be pulling away, but writerchad will tell you that one bad week can open the door for other players to make a comeback. There’s only three weeks left, so finish strong.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many yards passing will Cincinnati’s starting quarterback accumulate against Illinois?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many fans will attend the Maryland-Florida State game?” The answer, according to the FSU Official Athletic Site, was 66,042. That makes griftdrift this week’s winner, as his guess was 3,959 off the total and mine was 4,008 off.

If we have a situation in the future where two players’ margin is the same, but one guessed over and one guessed under, the winner will be the player whose guess was lower than the actual total. Adjust your guessing strategies accordingly.

I’m glad it’s competitive at the top in this contest, unlike in the SEC, where there’s Florida, Alabama and a bunch of teams that like to tease you with a few decent games only to collapse under the weight of their own meager expectations.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many fans will attend the Maryland-Florida State game?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many yards of offense will Vanderbilt and Kentucky combine for in their Clash of the Titans?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 608. Jason was closest with his guess of 595.

C’mon, y’all aren’t really going to let Carl take this contest three years in a row, are you?

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many yards of offense will Vanderbilt and Kentucky combine for in their Clash of the Titans?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many total sacks will all defenses in the Coaches’ Top 25 poll register against opposing offenses combined?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 56. Sara’s answered exactly 56.

I was hoping the blackout trend had played itself out after Alabama mopped the floor with Georgia last year. No such luck, as both Georgia and Tennessee came out with some black apparel this past Saturday.

In Tennessee’s case, at least there’s a historic precedent that will let me rationalize the black jerseys as throwbacks rather than as the sacrilegious trendhopping gimmick they probably are: the Vols wore black jerseys in 1921 before switching to orange in 1922. Fortunately it worked out last Saturday, but being a little superstitious, I was against the idea when I first heard it might happen.

In Georgia’s case, it comes off in hindsight as a desperate last gasp from a coaching staff that’s out of ideas for how to motivate their players to recover a lost season. Of course, it’s always a good play call when it works, and a bad one when it doesn’t.

Oh, and Lane Kiffin is undefeated against Steve Spurrier. Heh. The gas pumping jokes still aren’t old to me, so keep them coming.

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Tiebreaker

How many total sacks will all defenses in the Coaches’ Top 25 poll register against opposing offenses combined?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many rushing yards will Georgia gain against Florida?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 121. writerchad’s answer of 123 was closest.

I had dinner reservations in Epcot Center this past Saturday I’d made before I knew what time the UT-Bama game would be, and missed the last few minutes. Naturally, my Vols came within a blocked field goal of beating the number one team in the country on its home field while I was gone. So it’s probably my fault they lost.

I dropped Garrett, kwakkwak and rugby from the standings since Garrett quit last week and the other two haven’t submitted anything since week 1.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many rushing yards will Georgia gain against Florida?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many passing touchdowns will all PAC 10 defenses allow combined?” It turned out not to be necessary, but the answer was 13. Carl’s answer of 12 was closest.

A couple of programming notes this week:

• Patrick says Google Forms ate his picks last week. Since someone else reported the same thing a few weeks ago, and since he did leave a tiebreaker, I’m inclined to believe him. The picks he resubmitted after the fact made him the winner of last week with 10 points.
• I’ll be on vacation Monday through Saturday and will be trying to avoid the computer as much as possible. Thus, I may not see your comment, email or Twitter message for quite a while, if at all, before Sunday night. So you may want to email me your no-covers as a back-up in case Google Forms eats your picks like it’s done to a couple of people.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many passing touchdowns will all PAC 10 defenses allow combined?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many yards of offense will Oklahoma put up in the Red River Shootout?” The answer was 311. Among Sara, Seth and Writerchad, Seth’s guess of 374 yards was closest, making him the week 7 winner!

In case you’re wondering if winning a particular week is meaningless, it does count toward the final tiebreaker at the end of the season.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, an animated GIF must be worth, like, five thousand or something:

Credit for the idea goes to Pete by way of Holly. I am merely an executioner of ideas.

Enter your picks

Tiebreaker

How many yards of offense will Oklahoma put up in the Red River Shootout?

Remember to enter your answer to this question in the comments section, and to make sure your answer isn’t the same as anyone else’s.

Last week’s tiebreaker question was “How many points will Nebraska and Missouri score combined?” Ben answered 60, I answered 54. The actual total was 39, making me the week 6 winner!